


Four Seasons Redux

by slire



Category: Samurai Jack (Cartoon)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Nightmares, PTSD, kind of a retelling of S04E10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 20:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11768262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: S05E08 rewritten to focus on healing and friendship instead of romance.





	Four Seasons Redux

"A year?" 

"Yes. It will take us a year to travel to the black forest that is Aku—where he began and where it all will **end**."

"What constitutes a year?"

"Do you not know?"   

"…"

"Do not be embarrassed. For presuming you knew, I apologize. I do not mind explaining. Throughout human and alien cultures there are different calendars, but it is agreed upon that a year consists of four seasons. The season we experience now is summer. Then comes autumn, winter and spring. Do you know how to recognize the signs of a season?"

"Inside the place where we were born we wouldn't learn anything that did not help our purpose: you, dead. We didn't learn why or when seasons passed, only how to fight you in a changing environment. We did not learn to pause. We did not learn to – look… or to to taste, smell, listen. When we were hunting you… when we were still a we… _I_ asked to take the night guard, but I had a motive. On top of a tree, when the stars shone, I paused. I lingered. I committed high treason: I watched the sky. But still I could not see beyond."

"Would you like me to help you do so?" 

"…"

"It is, of course, your choice."

"…Yes."

.

.

 **SUMMER**  

_A memory, a nightmare?_

_Red and black and white. Sharp black rocks. On the bottom of a dead volcano is where the Daughters of Aku are born. Seven pale fleshy things born into a garden of red and white agonies. No death as brutal as birth. Cut the meat and see its ghosts: fill it up to the brim with salt and seal the wounds. They swim in a sea of pain and the waves pull them down, down, down. One surfaces, sometimes._

_(Inside Ashi, it is not Aku that festers.)_

_During these sometimes, she is—what Mother calls—distracted._

_Eyes that wander, eyes that see too much. Red and black and white: but sometimes there is a loose rock that makes for a peephole and reveals a different world for a moment (but Mother filled it all with molten stone), an insect that got in and shines in a color for which there is no name (but Mother crushed it beneath her heel). She solves her distractedness by finding not-so-identical signs: a mole, a hair, a nervous tic; this one cracks her jaw, and this one's face becomes a soft stone. They crawl over each other like a writhing ball of flesh: the outer sisters freeze, and it is important to stay in the middle. Safe. Hidden. Anonymous. Dead. It is difficult to see where she begins and her sisters end. Still: her sisters notice, this alien thing inside her that make her head whip to the side and away from it all, this alien thing that makes her capable of compassion, of curiosity, of guilt. She looks up, up, up, as if the blue of the above will grant something else._

_She is cursed with the eyes of a human._

_._

_._

(Language is difficult. It conveys thought. What does one do when having a bleeding hole in one's mind? The hole produces nightmares even when Ashi is awake. During her time in the black place – _home_ is a difficult, unnatural word – language conveyed orders and truth. There was a preordered structure, faultless and absolute. Now, when truth has become complex, to speak at all is a challenge.)

Ashi has eyes only for the man she was born to kill. 

The man currently sitting in front of her cross-legged and sipping tea.

"I think," the Samurai says, all patience and steam rising from a tea cup held delicately in the hands of a deadly warrior, "today's lesson will be on sight." 

The hot air rising from the cup lies between them like a thin veil. Still she sees the wrinkles on his face that carry feeling beyond ordinary meaning. How he can drink hot leaf water in this weather is beyond her, but he seems to entertain the weirdest habits. 

"I want you to describe what you see," he says. "Apart from me."

Ashi takes a deep breath. The first few moments her eyes flicker back to him. Then she starts concentrating. "This is an open field. Good for open combat if we are many and can surround you – I mean someone – in the middle. If I am alone, I need to make sure that I am stronger than the opponent, so that I do not need to rely on any surroundings. Over there is a river. I know the current is not too strong. It will be possible to swim through. Should you – again, I mean, um, _someone_ – run, I'd be able to follow. Should someone be stronger, I can dive in and recover strength, then go back to hunting them. Yes. And there," she turns her head, "is a forest. It is very thick, but I can navigate through such an environment with ease. If not spotted, I'd hide behind a tree. If it is a chase, I'd use them to jump to and from to catch up with my opponent easier. If he hides in there… I'd burn it all to the ground." She waits and expects to hear the strategies she's missed. 

"Ah, that is not – incorrect. But…"

"Yeah?"

"I would like you to notice things that would have no consequence on battle."

"Possible distractions?" 

"No, no. Things such as objects of beauty." 

"Illusions?" 

"No, no. An illusion is a thing that is wrongly perceived. I've seen—illusions." Darkness pass over his eyes again. Ashi sees herself reflected in it. Then it clears like a sun bursting from a cloud: a smile, so soft and needless on his lips. "I want you to look for things that are simply pleasant to look at. Or simply is."

"Pleasant?" She almost hisses, like the word burns her. "I don't… I can't…" She touches her eyes as if they inhabit a disease. 

"Take your time. I believe in you." 

She does her take her time. Feels out the space. Tries to remember to back when she was a child, in which her natural born curiosity was not yet grinded down until dust, faraway dreams and an occasional misstep in the red, black, gray dungeon that was – 

"Colors," she suddenly remembers. "What are the colors of this season?" 

Jack says, "Summer is the season of warmth. The colors reflect that: dark hues, yellows, browns, dark green, deep orange, tired blossoms." 

"The grass that surrounds us dark-green," she says. She pats it strangely. "The forest is the same color, but a bit darker. The water in the river is blue, calm. It'd probably be nice to swim in." Suddenly, sharply, she looks up. "The sky – …the sky is blue," and it comes like a whisper.

But in her newly-acquired sight she turned on Jack. Old habit or new (in)sight? For once, language comes to her without stop. 

"In your eyes I see pain. It's old pain, older than me, I think. When we visited those civilizations – " bursts of memory, color: unfamiliar smiling faces who was kind to her without real reason, " – that you had saved there was joy in your eyes but it was subdued. You enjoy helping people but you wander alone. Yet you do not seem to be content being alone. I believe you are what they call l – "

"That is enough," he says, voice thick. 

"Was I wrong?"

"No, no." He takes a deep breath. The cup of tea sits beside him, lukewarm. Ashi sits immobile. Then after a small eternity, Jack opens his eyes. "I am sorry for cutting – " she thinks of knives " – you off. It was rude of me. You were going to say that I was lonely, yes?"

She gives a tiny, rigid nod. 

"You were correct. To see clearly can also be very painful. But it is good pain. It is – pain shared. Makes it easier. I also have distractions, illusions – about myself. Those are the bad kind. Pain, unshared. It festers like an infected wound inside your chest. Bad blood." Jack looks straight ahead. "Yes. I am lonely."

"You are not alone," Ashi says, and she needn't force the words, because it's capital-t Truth. 

"I guess not." Jack gives her a tiny smile. Ashi thinks about so many of their features are tiny. When they are not, things go awry (like the time Jack tried to pat her on the shoulder and her reflexes almost made her break his fingers had he not pulled away in time). "But I do miss my – family," he admits. 

Ashi sits immobile yet again. "Me too. My sisters," she explains matter-of-factly when he stares, looks down, sighs. "Who do you miss? Your mother and father?"

Jack swallows thickly, "Yes."

"They would not understand, would they?" She thinks of her sisters – of Rin's hand, reaching out to her when she fell, so many years ago. "Fifty years apart." Between her and her sisters, always a distance: Mother had said so. 

"Let is not… talk too much about this. It's very painful. Let's – talk about beautiful objects some more. Yes?"

"Yes." She allows herself to fall into his (verbal) trap. Illusions. Distractions. But still: the Truth eventually will rise past illusions. 

She looks around her, looks and looks, at the heat and the gold air and parched shadows. Summer is not the season to talk of heavy things, perhaps. That does not mean she'll let it go.

.

.

**AUTUMN**

_A memory, a nightmare?_

_What lingers on one's tongue down here is also black. Or maybe gray. In the caverns of the dead volcano, in which fear and breakfast taste the same, they ate only black and gray or colorless things: dirty rainwater, dried poblano, corn fungi_ , _the bruised part of fruit, often the darkest, blackest things. Food was given to them and eating was a mechanical habit. They learnt to never eat anything in the wild (starvation was a nobler option than to eat well / be poisoned and pulled into the Samurai's world as his slave). One surfaces, sometimes. The strong taste of blood in her mouth makes her frown._

_(Inside Ashi, it is not Aku that festers.)_

_During these sometimes, she is—what Mother calls—distracted._

_During these sometimes she shuts herself in the cracks in the jagged walls pretending to practice hiding, or perhaps not practicing at all, standing so still she feels dead. She secretly licks the rocks in search for new sensations: salt. Salt. She solves the growing hunger by pressing close to her identical sisters and tasting them, too. Does it taste different to chew on a piece of their hair rather than her own? The food they're served is bland and tasteless: if it'd tasted good, Mother said, it'd be a distraction and they'd grow fat and lazy while the Samurai killed the world_. _Still, right after she squashes a crispy caterpillar and eats it just to try something different. She hungers for something different._

_She is cursed with the taste of a human._

.

.

"This lesson," Jack says, "will be on taste."

Ashi sits in her lotus-position, frowning. 

In-between them lies five similar bowls on a long wooden plate. Jack insisted they used this day to rest, then proceeded to cook like crazy. When she got too curious he sent her – stomping and huffing – away to collect more firewood. When she returned, he was like this: self-satisfied like a predator who'd just swallowed prey. The fire lights up the clearing: a bomb of orange in the middle of hazy and dark, dark green. 

"Taste," she says. "Poison."

"Not quite. Taste as something – pleasant. Like how you enjoy looking at the sky but with your mouth."

"I'm going to taste the night sky?"

"Perhaps." He strokes his chin, gets a starry look in his eyes. "I am an okay cook, at least when it comes to simple meals. The jungle," he gestures around him with his eyes closed with a stupid smile, "is a culinarily oasis."

An owl hoots. 

Are they meant to eat the owl? She readies her makeshift bow, but he hovers a very delicate hand over hers, message clear: don't. He's still smiling, damn it. 

She wonders what his hair tastes like. She guesses not so good. 

"Is this what fifty years in an alien world has taught you?"

"One of many things," Jack says, entirely ignoring her little jab. "Another thing I have learned is to never drink of a stranger's well. It will most certainly turn you into a bunch of leaves." He nods sagely and strokes a beard he no longer has.

"…Okay."

"But enough of that! Let us begin the feast. I have here," he gestures to the bowls, "four different dishes. They each have a focus on one special taste. Sweet, sour, salty and bitter."

"What does those words mean?"

"It is difficult to talk of taste. You must experience it," he gestures to them.  

She remembers –

Bowls, like these, but made of rock. Disgusting dishes. "Eat," she and her sisters had been commanded. They ate. Grimaced. Ate more. Retched. They were told what to look out for, what to smell, what to – 

 _Poison training_. 

"In the first bowl is sugary dumplings with walnut and melon seeds. They are sweet."

She eats. 

"In the third bowl there is noodles with shredded pork and sesame paste. Sour."

She eats. 

"In the second bowl is mussels in thick soup. Salty."

She eats. 

"In the fourth bowl there is stir fried bitter melon and some kind of stuffed peppers. Bitter."

She eats. 

Waits. 

"Well?" Jack asks, all expectant and beaming. 

She points a decisive finger at the dish of sugary dumplings, nods seriously and says, "POISON."

Jack slaps a hand to his face and groans. 

An owl hoots again. 

This time, Jack is not fast enough to stop the flaming arrow Ashi has ready for the owl. The owl promptly catches on fire and falls down. 

Fifteen minutes later they're both eating medium-cooked alien owl. 

Jack says it tastes kind of bitter, but eats it with far more enjoyment than his weird gourmet food. "So, after what I have taught you today, what do _you_ think it tastes like?" The grease around his mouth does not lessen his sage-like teacher-attitude. 

Ashi gives him a true predator smile. "Crispy."

"That is not a – "

She holds up a hand, hovers it over his, all while closing her eyes and smiling, " _Crispy_."

She thinks about the leaves crushing beneath their boots, the clear damp mornings and melancholy themes, cooler nights. Nature's late colors staff the garden, the sap of every green soul rushing forward like blood suffusing a shy beauty's cheek in the first moments of romance: beautiful, but fleeting. Ashi longs for something more solid, something to last through the rain and mud and of her mind. A friendship, maybe. An equal friendship in which both believe in each other and themselves. 

.

_A memory, a nightmare?_

_The odor of dust, smoke, dead fire. The odor of something forgotten. But it is unchangeable: their surroundings do not change, their food do not change._

_(Inside Ashi, it is not Aku that festers.)_

_During these sometimes, she is—what Mother calls—distracted._

_During these sometimes, when she searches aimlessly for new sensations, to inhale new stuff that is not granite dust or the smell of old. Her sisters become the answer. One night, there is suddenly the smell of blood among them when they wake. One of the sisters find blood between her thighs and complain of pain in the stomach and lower back. Ashi inhales the scent of illness, of rot: for her an absence of health is new, exciting, wondrous, but also very dangerous. The blood smells old. Her sisters sneaks her extra torn-off cloths._

_And the Mother finds out and smells like a thunderstorm. "Ah. I did wonder when you'd be of age… No matter. This mixture will turn your wombs black. You do not need them. A world in which the Samurai lives it not the place to birth a child." But – ? "Quiet. Eat this." There is a bowl of something bitter and strange and purple. "Eat," their Mother orders. They eat. Soon after, the new smell stops. The other girls never experience anything like the old blood. Mother says it is for the best and Ashi thinks – passively, privately – that hidden among Mother's bad breath and bloodied teeth, she can smell a lie._

_She is cursed with the nose of a human._

_._

**WINTER**  

"This lesson," Jack says, "will be on smell."

There is an earthquake, momentarily pausing the exchange. Both the Samurai and Ashi wait without batting an eye. 

"But! You have taught me that I need to be a more open-minded teacher. When I was a boy, I was blessed to be taught by many masters of many different regions. I do not think I can cover that spectrum with my, um, _traditional mindset_ , but I can allow you to pick time and place yourself. So!"

There is another earthquake. 

"I'd like to learn while we fight," Ashi says when it has passed. 

"The two of us?"

"No. _Them_ ," she says, and points at the creatures causing the earthquakes. 

Huge, purple monkeys. Dozens of them. They stand out in the white of the snow, as wide as three Jacks, and all jump at the same time, causing small concentrated earthquakes. Hideous creatures really, mouth comically wide, frozen in a menacing grim. The opposite of the sleek shape of Ashi. But… But. 

Teeth flash white, halting her sudden thought. Her sword flashes through numerous of them. 

Jack is right behind her, protesting her, slashing an arm that might've graced her. Hm: one less paper cut.  Well meant, though. 

The monkeys bleed blue. It splatters onto the ground. Not uncommon. Fewer left now. They all stand together, jumping at the same time, but so do Ashi and Jack. 

Earthquake. 

_Slash!_

Earthquake. 

_Slash!_

Ashi and Jack fight together. 

(She thinks of her sisters. She thinks of what Mother said right before Ashi killed her.)

But the monkeys fight together, too. They huddle close, drawing strength from numbers, copying each other's fighting techniques and speaking without language. One who does not follow the others get slashed by a dagger, one of Jack's.

(Was Ashi the troubled one? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe Mother pulled the same tactic one every last one of them, making them think of themselves as the oustider. Maybe it could've been any one of them, who survived the Samurai, who broke the mask and chain and survived herself. It gives her... comfort.)

She kills more than Jack, moving switfly with inner fire.

(She feels all her sisters move beneath her skin.)

In the end, when they have painted the snow with purple blood, they hear a wail and moves towards it.

It's a hive. It's located inside a fallen tree, in its great big tree root. A mother monkey sits there, hiding smaller versions of her behind her. 

Ashi looks at the sneering mother. But instead of killing, Ashi chooses to inhale. The smell of nature – grass, moss, oaks, flowers, and dirt – that blew in through clearing. The slightly sour musk of very old wood. The dusty animal scent of wool rugs. Jack's skin, his sweat, his soap. Smoke from the fire: punishing, raw, made her eyes sting. It birth a memory of ashy surroundings and smells and she moves away.

"It is a mother. That is not what saves it from me."

"What saves it, then?" 

"The mother's desire to protect. She will not attack unless we do."

The monkey mother growls, but does not move. The children all flock tighter together behind her. Jack's eyes are far away (the scene must've made him recall something), then shakes his head, "You are right. Let us go."

The monkey mother does not attack, even when they turn their backs. 

"I cannot bear children," Ashi tells him. 

"I'm sorry," Jack says. 

She shrugs. She isn't sure that it's a loss, as she isn't sure she wants any. In some ways she's a child herself, she knows. She is also a human being and will kill anyone who infantilizes her. Still: there are things unfamiliar to her that is familiar to many children. Like when they'd freed the alien babes from mind control, they'd hugged their parents. What is it like to hug? To want to press your body against someone not because of survival (like in the black place: for warmth) nor to deliver a melee killing blow? 

"Aku killed my family," Jack tells her. "I am not sure I will ever have a family of my own. My mind... is too shattered."

Ashi nods. She holds his eyes for a moment, and that says it all: I releate. 

"Let us have tea," the Samurai says, and wipes blood off his sword. 

"With extra ginseng," Ashi adds. 

Winter comes with a fresher air, gave them a clearer mind. It is the season of twilight, of bare branches and moss, of warm kettles softening the presence of longer nights. 

.

 **SPRING**  

_A memory, a nightmare?_

_The sound she grew up with is the lack of sound. Silence, and deep and horrible as anything, only broken by the sound of swords clashing, dripping cave water, bones breaking, lava bubbles popping. Any wail is cut short; any wail is punished by extreme stillness—one is shoved in a corner and forced to stand there, still and silent, for three days without a twitch. But is not absence of noise also meaninful, in dialogue or a song?_

_(Inside Ashi, it is not Aku that festers.)_

_During these sometimes, she is—what Mother calls—distracted._

_But there is a well-kept secret: the distraction is not hers alone. During these sometimes, she talks to her sister. Not talk-talks, not with words, they are few and traiterous, but in looks and grips and noises, sometimes, when Mother is not listening. One of them has a bad foot and the others brings her food and shields her from battle. One of them is allergic to wheat and they save other types of dinner to lessen her pain. When one of them falls, once, they do not help her up... but they bring ointment afterwards._ _Ashi likes to listen to her sister's hearts at night: she presses her ear against their chest to her the sound of alive, alive, alive._

_She is cursed with the ears of a human._

.

.

"This fourth lesson," Ashi begins. "I'd like it to begin while moving."

"As you wish," Jack says, smiling. "It'll certainly give you perspective."

"Tell me stories," Ashi says. 

He tells her about a sand storm in summer where he fought for hours against enemies who turned out to be illusions because he did not use his sight properly. 

He tells her about a poisoned well he found in autumn, a mad scientist, and how the experiment that led to the scientist's death because he did not understand that poisoned water tastes foul. 

He tells her about a raging battle in winter among a proud warrior race where only one was left standing and wielding the war hammer, but pride became the one's downfall when he challenged Jack, who wielded something greater. 

He tells her about a calm garden he found in spring in which a forest-nymph promised him eternal rest, in a quiet and calm wonderland, and how he refused. 

She listens for other things as well—the different birdsong, mammal noise, weather changing, rivers flowing, trees creaking… The sound of footsteps. Rythmn. It is to the rythmn of footsteps she walks for a week, exchanging fewer and fewer questions with Jack. (They are closing in on Aku; they know what they must do.)

"Music," she says suddenly. "What is the purpose of music?"

Jack pauses. Then he takes forth a flute. Begins to play. The notes move up and down in an odd pattern that create strangely fitting sounds. They all come together like some puzzle, the result beautiful and alien to her. She had no idea air could be manipulated like this, no idea you could make beauty out of nothing. 

"Wonderful," Ashi says. 

Jack continues to play the flute. 

As of late she has grown more silent. But she has not lost language. Instead she has taken the language inside herself again, but refreshed and renewed with a complexity that was denied her before. In her mind she can describe (or: it is difficult, to describe the workings of language in the mind, but she likes trying) the sights and tastes and smells of the world and revel in them. She can remember and dream of other things than horrible things. She day-dreams of color music.

Day-dreaming, taken away by song, she bumps into him. It results in a half-hug, in which her body press towards his, heat, his heart, his heart, his heart—alive and _yes_. She enjoys this contact and is reminded of her sisters. But then Jack, in his shock at the hug, stops playing.

And so the moment is broken. 

Ashi pulls away.

Inhales. 

There is — time. There is time. So instead she picks up the flute when her mind wails too much and plays for herself and the Samurai. He teacher her to play, and through it, a method to tackle her trauma. 

It is the season of change, of winds turninging soft and happy, of birds returning to familiar gardens. Again, everything is new and ready to don fresh robes of life and vigor; every cup brims with potential.

.

.

For the first time in a long time, Ashi enjoys a complete silence.

The memories in nightmare-form still haunt her, but she has learnt to live with them, to rise early with the shadow of pain in her eyes; such is better than to scream and lash about. She has learnt to ask: for silence, for mindless chatter, for a cup of tea with ginseng. Right now, she allows herself both to dwell and enjoy the freedom, silently. 

Jack is sleeping beside her on his fūton. (She sees his chest rise and fall, smells his ginseng-breath, hears the soft inhale exhale… but does not need to chew on his hair to complete the circle!). He trusts her. He is… her friend. Yes. For someone who has grown up without knowing friendship, it is strange and enjoyable. She has a peculiar duty to him. But she also has a duty to herself. Apart from him and the occasional night sound, it is quiet. But even without spoken language her thoughts feel clearer. The silence wraps around her like a protective second skin. She sighs for the pleasure of sighing. Time passes, she understands that now. 

Of course, Ashi still feels the pull from time to time, the black clogging smoke of her past (and something bad lodged deep inside) – but she thinks she'll be ready in time. 

She is, after all, cursed with the heart of a human.

**Author's Note:**

> odd little thing i wrote in the spring during exams. might be spacey


End file.
